Eastern Ukraine Elects Separatist Leaders As West Rejects Polls

(@FahadShabbir)

Eastern Ukraine elects separatist leaders as West rejects polls

People in Russian-backed areas of eastern Ukraine re-elected separatist leaders at the weekend, according to results released Monday of polls condemned as illegal by Kiev and Western countries.

Donetsk, Ukraine, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Nov, 2018 ) :People in Russian-backed areas of eastern Ukraine re-elected separatist leaders at the weekend, according to results released Monday of polls condemned as illegal by Kiev and Western countries.

Elections in the Donetsk and Lugansk "People's Republics", controlled by separatists since breaking away from Ukraine's pro-Western government in 2014, took place after the killing of the rebel Donetsk "president" in a bomb attack in August.

Security was tight for Sunday's vote with gun-toting, camouflage-clad guards deployed to ensure order.

Denis Pushilin, the 37-year-old acting Donetsk leader, was elected with 61 percent of the vote with almost all ballots counted, the local electoral commission said.

Leonid Pasechnik, the acting Lugansk leader, took 68 percent of the vote.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel branded the vote "illegal and illegitimate" following a meeting with Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko on the sidelines of World War I commemorations also attended by Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Sunday.

"These so-called elections undermine the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine," the pair said in a joint statement.